(a) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to folding portable communications devices and particularly relates to those in which a display part is supported switchably between a vertical position and a transverse position.
(b) Description of the Related Art
A recent trend has been to use a folding mobile phone away from home to watch TV. Folding mobile phones generally have a longitudinally-extending display part. When the user watches TV on the longitudinally-extending display part, the size of the TV screen is very small as compared with the total display size. There have been conventional conflicting needs between making the folding mobile phone size as small as possible and watching TV on a large screen.
If the mobile phone itself is horizontally oriented and the screen is changed to a landscape mode, TV screen images can be displayed on the full display. To keep the display part of the mobile phone horizontally oriented, it is necessary to keep on holding the mobile phone, as turned 90 degrees into a horizontal position, with one hand or both hands or to stably keep the horizontally oriented folding mobile phone with a special holder. However, it is difficult to keep on holding the mobile phone in a fixed position with one hand or both hands and to find an appropriate holder away from home.
To cope with this, some techniques have been proposed that turn the display part, which is provided on an upper housing of the folding mobile phone, 90 degrees with respect to a lower housing thereof and allow the back face of the lower housing to rest on a place where the mobile phone is, thereby relatively stably putting the mobile phone on the place while allowing TV watching.
For example, Published Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-156893 discloses a folding portable communications device in which the display part is supported to a first housing switchably from vertical to horizontal position with the portable communications device itself held in a vertical position in hand. Specifically, the folding portable communications device has a pivot pin provided at the center of the display part and extending orthogonally to the display part, whereby the display part can be turned 90 degrees about the pivot pin.
Published Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-114670 discloses a portable communications device including: a first casing having a large number of input keys; a second casing having a display part capable of displaying letters and images; a connection member having one end hinge-jointed to the first casing foldably together and the other end connected in contacting relation to one region of the second casing; a pivotally actuating means, disposed between the one region of the second casing and the other end of the connection member, for pivotally moving the second casing along the contact surface with the connection member within a predetermined range of angles; and a signal processor for converting an image displayed on the display part when the second casing is pivotally moved by the pivotally actuating means. According to the portable communications device, the display part can change its position from vertical to horizontal or vice versa and can also change its screen size.
Alternatively, a known folding portable communications device disclosed in Published Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-319043 has a support mechanism that supports a display part slidably and pivotably on a first housing. According to the folding portable communications device, the display part is first vertically slid and then moved pivotally about a pivot pin provided at the center of the display part. Therefore, the display part can accordingly avoid its contact with the hinge and a swelled part provided at the lower end of the first housing and thereby increase the display size.
In all of the above known techniques, a mechanism for turning the display part is provided on the back face so that the display part can be turned from vertical to horizontal position in a single direction. Thus, the display can be oriented vertically and horizontally and the image size to be displayed can be changed.
However, as can be expected, whether the direction to provide ease of turning operation of the display part is clockwise or counterclockwise as viewed from the front depends upon whether the user is right-handed or left-handed. Furthermore, it can be expected that which direction provides ease of turning operation of the display part depends also upon whether the user holds the portable communications device in the right hand or the left hand.